Trial officially begins as first potential jurors sworn in
Victoria Bekiempis
The first batch of potential jurors has been sworn in by the judge, Juan Merchan.
This makes Donald Trump the first US president, former or president, to stand trial.
Since they’re sworn in, the trial has officially started.
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Trump arrived at court shortly after 9am. Speaking to reporters before he entered the courtroom, the former president claimed the trial was “an assault on America” and “an attack on a political opponent”.
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Both sides – Trump’s defense team and the Manhattan prosecutors – spent hours disputing evidentiary issues, including whether the infamous Access Hollywood tape from 2016 in which Trump bragged that he could sexually assault women because of his fame could be shown.
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Merchan reiterated that the Access Hollywood tape could not be shown but that the transcript could be shown to jurors.
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Merchan also reiterated his gag order banning Trump from attacking witnesses or family members of court officials and warned that Trump could be held in contempt and jailed if he violated the order.
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The judge will hold a hearing on 23 April on prosecutors’ request to fine Trump $3,000 over social media posts that they say violated the gag order barring him from attacking witnesses.
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Trump appeared to nod off hours before jury selectio , several hours into lugubrious legal battles over evidence that dominated the morning session.
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Jury selection did not start until about 2.30pm ET. Merchan swore in the first batch of 96 potential panelists. More than half were excused after saying they could not be fair and impartial.
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The day ended without any jurors being seated. The selection process was scheduled to resume on Tuesday.
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Following the proceedings, Trump told press outside the courtroom that the trial was a “scam” and complained it was preventing him from attending his son’s high school graduation, appearing at a supreme court hearing and campaigning for the upcoming presidential election.
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Merchan told prospective jurors that the court would adjourn for the day, and that they should return early tomorrow so he can start at 9.30am ET.
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Earlier, the judge admonished the defense team for returning late from the afternoon break.
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The first batch of potential jurors has been sworn in by the judge, Juan Merchan.
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This makes Donald Trump the first US president, former or president, to stand trial.
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Since they’re sworn in, the trial has officially started.
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Back when candidate Donald Trump was just starting to fill stadiums across the US with loyal crowds of supporters, he held a fateful meeting that would set the course for the first criminal trial of a former US president, which kicked off today.
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At that August 2015 meeting, Trump spoke with David Pecker, then-CEO of American Media, the parent company of tabloid the National Enquirer. Pecker told Trump he could be the “eyes and ears” for Trump’s presidential campaign, on the lookout for any salacious stories people were telling about him. Prosecutors would later call this strategy a “catch and kill” scheme.
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As Trump’s campaign began to grow, Pecker learned about an adult film actor who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, the year after he married Melania, and was willing to go public with her story.
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With the help of his former fixer Michael Cohen, Trump would allegedly pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 in 2016 to keep quiet about her story. After Trump became president, prosecutors say, he started reimbursing Cohen for the payment, which he would record in his financial records as legal fees to Cohen.
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These payments could land Trump in prison. Prosecutors allege that Trump broke the law by falsifying these business records to hide illegal hush-money payments and protect Trump’s chances during the presidential election.
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The former president faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts last April. The charges carry a maximum of four years in prison.
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Police are investigating a bomb threat at the home of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, from this morning, they said.
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A police spokesperson said a 911 caller reported the threat shortly before 9am, AP reported.
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This isn’t the first time Bragg has been threatened for his role in prosecuting the case against Donald Trump.
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A powdery substance was found last year with a threatening letter that said “Alvin, I am going to kill you” in a mailroom at Bragg’s offices.
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Merchan appears eager to get on to the voir dire jury selection process.
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Trump lawyer Todd Blanche says Trump intends to be present for everything – including side bars – which is now causing a new problem due to logistics issues with the US Secret Service. Blanche insists:
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President Trump wants to be present at everything. He does want to be present.
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Merchan, speaking to Trump, tells him that if he disrupts the proceeding, he could be jailed, with jury selection continuing in his absence.
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It’s a routine “Parker warning” that Merchan issues to all defendants.
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Donald Trump appears to be nodding off.
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His eyes close and his head tilts or lowers and then it jolts him awake again.
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To recap: Merchan reiterated that the Access Hollywood tape and Trump’s reference to the tape in a deposition won’t come into evidence.
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But Merchan allowed into evidence the transcript – so that prosecutors can read out the full Trump quote “grab them by the pussy” – and a 2015 email chain where Hope Hicks forwards the transcript to Kellyanne Conway asking if it was Trump’s voice, to which Conway asks Michael Cohen who was doing damage control.
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Judge Juan Merchan denied the defense motion to recuse himself from the case.
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In a recent court filing, Trump’s lawyers called on Merchan to remove himself from the case, arguing the judge’s daughter’s work for a political consultancy with Democratic clients poses a conflict of interest.
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In a one-page court filing dated 1 April, Trump’s lawyers asked Merchan for permission to file a formal motion for him to recuse himself, arguing the trial would benefit his daughter’s firm, Authentic Campaigns, financially.
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Trump last year made a similar request for Merchan to recuse himself, but the judge denied the bid after an ethics panel found that his daughter’s work did not pose reasonable questions about his impartiality.
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This is the people of the state of New York versus Donald J Trump.
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Court has begun with the clerk’s announcement. Juan Merchan has taken the bench.
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The judge says:
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The case is on today for jury selection. There are a couple of loose ends that we have to go over before we get started.”
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Donald Trump spoke briefly to reporters as he arrived at the court in Manhattan, where he claimed the trial is “an assault on America” and “an attack on a political opponent.”
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“Nobody has ever seen anything like it,” he said, adding:
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This is political persecution … it’s a case that should have never been brought.
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The former president added:
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It’s an assault on America. And that’s why I’m very proud to be here. This is an assault. On our country. And it’s a country that’s failing. It’s a country that’s run by an incompetent man who’s very much involved in this case. This is really an attack on a political opponent. That’s all it is. So I’m very honored to be here.
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Trump has arrived at the New York criminal court for the start of jury selection. Trump travelled to court with his lawyers, including Todd Blanche and Emil Bove.
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Some are already well known – and others are likely to become household names starting today.
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• If you’ve successfully managed to find your way to the internet to read this, you’ve likely heard of the defendant, Donald Trump.
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• There’s also Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, an adult film star who says she met Trump in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament. She was 27, Trump was 60. She says she took $130,000 from Trump’s lawyers to keep quiet about their affair because, as she told 60 Minutes: “The story was coming out again. I was concerned for my family and their safety.”
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• Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, also claimed to have had an affair with Trump. She was paid $150,000 by the National Enquirer, which bought her story in order to not publish it – a practice known as “catch and kill”. Allegedly those payments also came from Trump.
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• Michael Cohen is the lawyer and former Trump loyalist who facilitated the payments. Trump is accused of working with Cohen and Trump organization officials to conceal the purpose of those payments on business records. In 2018, Cohen pled guilty to a range of federal crimes, including campaign finance charges, and said he made the payments at the direction of Trump. He served a three-year prison sentence. He was also disbarred in New York in 2019 after pleading guilty to lying to Congress.
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• David Pecker is the CEO of American Media Inc (AMI), the publisher of the National Enquirer. As well as the Playboy model’s story, AMI paid $30,000 to a former doorman at Trump Tower who was trying to sell a story that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock.
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• There’s Allen Weisselberg, the former CFO of the Trump Organization who worked for the company for more than 50 years. He has already been sentenced to prison twice, but has so far refused to turn on Trump. He played a key role in concealing the purpose of Trump’s repayments to Cohen, according to the indictment.
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And some of the court players:
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• Juan Merchan. The judge was born in Colombia and grew up in New York City. He has moved the case along quickly, and recently expanded a gag order against Trump after the former president repeatedly attacked his daughter, who has worked for various Democratic political candidates.
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• The district attorney who has brought the case against Trump is Alvin Bragg. Elected in 2021 to be the top prosecutor in Manhattan, he initially slow-walked a criminal investigation into Trump’s financial assets, prompting the prosecutors to resign; but then surprised everyone by moving forward with the hush-money case instead.
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• Trump’s lawyer is Todd Blanche. A well-respected former prosecutor who left his job at a white-collar firm to represent Trump, this will only be his second trial as a defense lawyer.
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Read more details in our explainer, below.
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Good morning, this is Chris Michael.
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Today marks a first in American history: a US president is going on trial for criminal charges.
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Donald Trump, winner of the 2016 election, loser in 2020 and now once again the presumptive Republican nominee in 2024, is accused of attempting to interfere with the first of those elections, by paying hush money to hide information from the American voters – specifically, the fact that he had an affair with an adult film star, Stephanie Clifford, AKA Stormy Daniels.
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Prosecutors say he had his attorney, Michael Cohen, pay $130,000 to a Daniels attorney in order to buy her silence. Similarly, they say he participated in a “catch and kill” scheme with the National Enquirer to buy another affair story – this one from the Playboy model Karen McDougall – in order to not publish it.
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Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records after he allegedly repaid his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the payments but listed them as legal fees. This would, prosecutors say, violate campaign finance law because the payments were intended to keep valuable information away from US voters right before the 2016 election.
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All of this came, if you’ll recall, around the time of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, where Trump bragged he could sexually assault women because of his fame. Prosecutors say Trump was terrified that if another story came out, about affairs with a porn star, it could cost him the 2016 election. Of course, the story didn’t come out, and he won the presidency.
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It is a tricky case – not necessarily because of the facts of the hush-money payments themselves, but because prosecutors will have to prove Trump’s intent to commit a crime.
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It also plays out in the thick of a presidential campaign, where Trump is running neck and neck in the polls with the US president, Joe Biden.
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Strap in.
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Key events
Day one: a summary
Donald Trump’s hush-money trial began on Monday in a Manhattan courtroom and is expected to last about six weeks. Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. New York judge Juan Merchan is overseeing the trial. Proceedings Monday centered on jury selection, a process that will resume Tuesday. Here are the top moments of the day:
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Trump arrived at court shortly after 9am. Speaking to reporters before he entered the courtroom, the former president claimed the trial was “an assault on America” and “an attack on a political opponent”.
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Both sides – Trump’s defense team and the Manhattan prosecutors – spent hours disputing evidentiary issues, including whether the infamous Access Hollywood tape from 2016 in which Trump bragged that he could sexually assault women because of his fame could be shown.
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Merchan reiterated that the Access Hollywood tape could not be shown but that the transcript could be shown to jurors.
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Merchan also reiterated his gag order banning Trump from attacking witnesses or family members of court officials and warned that Trump could be held in contempt and jailed if he violated the order.
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The judge will hold a hearing on 23 April on prosecutors’ request to fine Trump $3,000 over social media posts that they say violated the gag order barring him from attacking witnesses.
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Trump appeared to nod off hours before jury selectio , several hours into lugubrious legal battles over evidence that dominated the morning session.
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Jury selection did not start until about 2.30pm ET. Merchan swore in the first batch of 96 potential panelists. More than half were excused after saying they could not be fair and impartial.
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The day ended without any jurors being seated. The selection process was scheduled to resume on Tuesday.
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Following the proceedings, Trump told press outside the courtroom that the trial was a “scam” and complained it was preventing him from attending his son’s high school graduation, appearing at a supreme court hearing and campaigning for the upcoming presidential election.
As court adjourned on Monday, Trump glared while exiting the room at Maggie Haberman, a New York Times journalist who had reported the former president dozed off during the day’s proceedings.
For the Guardian, Victoria Bekiempis reports on the sleepy moments for Trump, which occurred around noon:
The housekeeping back-and-forth between Trump’s team and prosecutors seemed like it might finally come to an end, as the judge Juan Merchan appeared eager to move things along. Merchan noted that there were hundreds of potential panelists waiting in the wings for jury selection to start.
Right around this time, reporters in the overflow courtroom noticed a curious movement on-screen. Trump’s eyes appeared closed – beyond their normal level of squinting. Meanwhile, it seemed like Trump’s head was edging forward, progressing downward until it would cause him to stir and right himself.
A full report on “dozing Don” can be read here.
Speaking to a press pool outside the courtroom on Monday, Trump repeatedly called the trial a “scam” and stated it was preventing him from attending his son’s high school graduation, appearing at a supreme court hearing, and campaigning for the upcoming presidential election.
“If you read all of the legal pundits or the legal scholars today, there’s not one that I’ve seen that said, this is a case it should be brought or tried,” he said. “It’s a scam. It’s a political witch-hunt. It continues, and it continues forever. And we’re not going to be given a fair trial. It’s a very, very sad thing.”
Trump opened his remarks to the pool with complaints about his son’s graduation ceremony, which the former president’s legal team requested a day off to attend. Although the judge has yet to make an official ruling on the matter, Trump acted as though it had been denied.
“As you know, my son is graduating from high school and it looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son,” he said. “I was looking forward to that graduation, with his mother and father there, and it looks like the judge does not allow me to escape this scam.”
Trump claimed he may not be able to travel to Washington DC for a supreme court hearing to decide whether he should be awarded presidential immunity exempting him from criminal charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He also said his inability to campaign in key states before the presidential election due to the trial would ultimately benefit Democrats.
“These are very complex things, and he’s not going to allow me to leave here for a half a day to go to DC and go before the United States supreme court, because he thinks he’s superior to the supreme court,” Trump said.
Trump did not answer reporters’ questions.
Court adjourns for the day
Merchan told prospective jurors that the court would adjourn for the day, and that they should return early tomorrow so he can start at 9.30am ET.
Earlier, the judge admonished the defense team for returning late from the afternoon break.
Lauren Aratani
The morning was taken up by proceedings. The atmosphere in the courtroom appeared calm, with Donald Trump at times appearing to doze off during proceedings. Much of the courtroom was left empty to allow room for jurors.
Jury selection did not start until later in the afternoon, and if the activity outside the courthouse was any indication, it will take lawyers a few days to select an unbiased group of New Yorkers who will ultimately decide the outcome of the trial.
Outside of the courthouse, multiple news channels were doing wall-to-wall coverage of the trial.
A few people holding what appeared to be jury ID slips – which jurors are sent in the mail and told to bring with them the day they are summoned to court – were let into the line of people entering the building. Some, looking bewildered, stopped to take pictures of the scene before entering the courthouse.
Lauren Aratani
Jury duty in America can often be a banal affair, a day spent in a courthouse filling out forms and telling lawyers when you’ve scheduled your next vacation.
But for those New Yorkers summoned to the state courthouse on Monday, it was a day when the ordinary became extraordinary. They arrived to a frenetic scene of loud protest and high security in downtown Manhattan – a sure sign that Donald Trump was yet again in court.
Though the procedures that played out in the courtroom at 100 Centre St were banal, their significance was pure history: the first US president facing criminal charges at trial. Not only that, but it comes at a time when Trump is all but guaranteed to be his party’s nominee for the 2024 presidential election.
Police closed off the block in front of the courthouse to pedestrians, requiring people to show press or court badges to get onto the street to the building. That didn’t stop passersby, including double-decker tour buses heading downtown, from stopping to ogle at the spectacle.
Court is back in session, and the jury selection process will continue.
Donald Trump did not respond to questions as he returned to the courtroom.
The court is taking a short recess.
Donald Trump watched as the prospective jurors filed out of the room. He then rose and left the courtroom.
He did not answer questions nor give a wave or thumbs up as he walked past reporters.
Victoria Bekiempis
One excused prospective juror made clear their feelings as they left.
“I just couldn’t do it,” they were overheard saying, according to a pool reporter.
Judge Merchan has begun calling individual jurors to answer questions from the 42-point questionnaire they were given.
It begins by asking basic biographical information about where prospective jurors live, their marital status, occupation and hobbies, as well as their sources of news.
Many of these questions require yes-or-no answers. Lawyers will be able to ask follow-up questions later.
Trump followed along intently with his own copy of the questionnaire as the first possible juror, a woman, gave her answers.
Rachel Leingang
While Donald Trump is in court in New York for the Stormy Daniels hush-money trial, his account on his social media platform is posting through it.
His Truth Social page is putting up new posts minute by minute, full of boasts about Trump or complaints about the charges he faces in this case and others.
The hush-money trial is the first of Trump’s cases to go to trial. This incessant posting could be an indication of how he intends to market himself amid the court battles, a way to distract from the case itself.
It is also a sign that he thinks leaning into the court cases, rather than avoiding talking about them, helps him with his followers.
The frenetic pace of the posts, though, with dozens just this morning, is a lot even for Trump. It’s unclear whether Trump himself is posting or people from his team are.
So far this morning, he has posted claiming the cases are an example of election interference and a sign that Biden and the Democrats are scared he will win. He has shared articles and videos about the cases, the border, the “stolen” election, his golf game, the Israel war, Ukraine, polls. He has posted videos about the cases with platitudes about how “they” are trying to steal the election from him and his supporters.
The judge asked prospective jurors to raise their hands if they believed they could not be fair and impartial. Judge Merchan said:
If you have an honest, legitimate, good-faith reason to believe you cannot serve on this case or cannot be fair and impartial, please let me know now.
More than half of prospective jurors in the first panel of 96 people have been excused.
Judge Merchan listed the names of more than 40 people who could be involved in the trial, including Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, David Pecker, members of the Trump family, Rudy Giuliani, former Trump presidential staffer Hope Hicks and Trump’s former chief of staff Reince Priebus.
The judge noted that not all of them will appear as witnesses but that their names could be raised at trial.
Merchan is giving the first batch of jurors introductory instructions, extolling the importance of jury service while explaining the basics of the case. He told jurors:
You are about to participate in a trial by jury. The system of trial by jury is one the cornerstones of our judicial system.
Many of the prospective jurors stretched their necks to get a look at Donald Trump once in their seats. One giggled and put her hand over her mouth, looking at the person seated next to her with raised eyebrows. Several appeared to frequently stare at the former president as Merchan introduced the case.
The jury’s responsibility is to evaluate the testimony and all of the evidence presented at the trial … The trial is the opportunity for you to decide if the defendant is guilty or not guilty.
Trump stood and turned around as he was introduced as the defendant, giving the prospective jurors a little tight-lipped smirk.
Trump looked straight ahead, expressionless in the direction of the judge as Merchan addressed the prospective jurors, occasionally looking towards the jury box.
Merchan has rescheduled the hearing for whether Donald Trump will be held in contempt of court has been changed from 24 April to 23 April 9.30am ET.
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